Thus no protection is afforded them by the British law against the violence or cruelty of one of their own race, and the law has hitherto only been known to them as the means of punishment, but never as a code from which they can claim protection or benefit.
The following instances will prove my assertion: In the month of October 1838 I saw early one morning some natives in the public street in Perth, in the act of murdering a native woman, close to the store of the Messrs.
Habgood; many Europeans were present, amongst others a constable; but there was no interference on their part until eventually the life of the woman was saved by the courage of Mr.Brown, a gardener in Perth, who rushed in amongst the natives and knocked down the man who was holding her; she then escaped into the house of the Messrs.

Habgood, who treated the poor creature with the utmost humanity.

She was however wounded in several places in the most severe and ghastly manner.
A letter I received from Mr.A.Bussel (a settler in the southern part of the colony) in May 1839 shows that the same scenes are enacted all over it.

In this case their cow-keeper (the native whose burial is narrated above) was speared by the others.

He was at the time the hired servant of Europeans, performing daily a stated service for them; yet they slew him in open daylight, without any cause of provocation being given by him.
Again, in October, 1838, the sister of a settler in the northern district told me that, shortly before this period, she had, as a female servant, a most interesting little native girl, not more than ten or eleven years of age.